The flexographic plate, using current technologies is imaged (or engraved) using a specially designed flexographic imaging device. Flexographic plates are relatively expensive, therefore flexographic plates will usually accommodate more than one distinct graphical art piece. For example, if a packaging job of a consumer product is requested, the job will usually include several different graphic art pieces, such as the front, back and sides of the package. The imaging of the flexographic plate, will include in this case the imaging of all those graphic art pieces in one imaging step. At this point the imaged flexographic plate comprises several distinct graphic art pieces. Those graphic art pieces are usually cut before they are positioned on a printing press.
In current printing technologies, the plate cutting is performed as a post imaging step. Often cutting is done manually on a manual cutting table, using a cutting blade. There are also automatic cutting machines, which receive the cutting geometry for a specific plate from a dedicated workstation. The supplied cutting geometry is translated to machine cutting commands for implementing the actual plate cutting. Cutting the flexographic as an extra step, in addition to the flexographic imaging machine process, is time consuming and costly, and manual cutting may result in lack of precision.